LETTER: City must be open and honest with public about data center

To Ozaukee Press:

Most citizens in the City and Town of Port Washington learned of a “massive data center complex planned for Port” on Jan. 9 from the Ozaukee Press.

The Press reported that the complex would “cost billions, use more than a gigawatt of power, and cover as many as 2,000 acres of town land annexed into city.”  The data center, according to the Press news story, “will likely consist of multiple large buildings of one to three stories, the number of which would be determined by the amount of power available, and will be phased in over the next five to eight years.”

Mayor Ted Neitzke stated in the Ozaukee Press that the process of dealing with the proposal has only started, saying, “This is going to be on our agendas for the foreseeable future. We can write the rules and expectations. There’s nothing that’s been negotiated or promised. We’re not going to dance to the developer’s needs. They will have to meet our needs.”

The mayor stated that dealing with the data center proposal will be a process.  How will this look? Will the citizens of both the city and town have an opportunity to learn more about this data center and be given the chance to ask questions and voice concerns? Will they be involved in the process? How will the Common Council answer concerns about people who live near the data center? What will the Council members say to citizens who are saddened that migrating birds’ habitats will be destroyed?

What about the environmental concerns? There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. And data centers, although proven beneficial for businesses and the global economy, are imposing a huge toll on the environment. It takes electricity, and vast amounts of it, to power the millions of servers, and to run the cooling systems that remove the immense amount of heat generated by processors.

With approximately 62% of the world’s electricity supply coming from burning fossil fuels, mostly coal and natural gas, electricity production generates the second-largest share of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. These data facilities are big users of batteries that require mining heavy metals like lead. Other common sources of data center pollution include diesel generators and electronic waste.

Since there was no community engagement regarding this data center until now, the right thing to do would be for the Common Council to hold a public meeting to give further information about the data center and to take questions and allay concerns.

Our elected officials owe us this opportunity. The data center decision will change the lives of many people, especially in the Town of Port. Since government decisions should reflect the will of the people, our local governments should remain transparent and accountable to their constituents during this process.   

Pat Morrissey

Port Washington